TUCCIOHOLIC.COM - Automatic Response From Ken by Ken Tuccio

Prior to living in the dorms at college I had never been really big with Instant Messenger.

I know that seems like a hard thing to imagine, but it was true. Prior to my Freshman year at school my Buddy List was pretty bare, I thought an emoticon was a Japanese fairy who stole your teeth at night, and I was still getting the hang of online slang. That all changed when I got to college however, as during that time I quickly became a pro in the wonderful world of Instant Messenger.

Instant Messenger quickly became my primary choice for interaction with others while I was in college. I’d use IM to try and make plans for the night, I'd use IM to confirm plans for the night, and then use IM to talk about how much fun it was when our plans came to fruition.

In short, I used IM to talk about alot of things having to do with plans.

My Mother soon found out that Instant Messenger was how I was interacting with all of my friends at school, so to try and be an involved parent, she signed on for IM as well. She figured that Instant Messenger would be an ideal way for her to interact with her son living in the dorms. She was excited about it, and I was kind enough to try and teach her the ins and outs of Instant Messenger ... sadly, she never caught on.

The problem with talking to my Mother over IM was that she typed everything like it was an eMail.

Here’s an example of how a regular IM conversation with my Mother would go:

Mom: Hi Ken, it’s Mom. I hope you’re having fun at school, feel free to call us whenever you want. Dad and I love you and miss having you around. Have a great day. Love Mom.

Ken: Hi Mom, this is IM, you don’t have to write things like a letter …

Mom: Hi Ken, Did you get my last message? We both love you. Love Mom.

Ken: Yes Mom, I got it, but like I said, over IM you don’t have to type like you would an email …

Mom: Oh, I understand. Sorry.

Mom: Love Mom.

No matter how much I tried to explain to her that she didn't need to format her IM's like a letter, she never ever picked up on it. God forbid I ever had an away message up, she’d be completely lost and confused:

Mom: Hi Ken, it’s Mom. Hope your finals are going well. Dad and I love you. Love Mom.

Automatic Response From Ken: Out with the guys, leave one.

Mom: Hi Ken. How’s school going? Love Mom.

Automatic Response From Ken: Out with the guys, leave one.

Mom: Hi Ken. Why are you being rude? I just want to say I love you. Love Mom.

Automatic Response From Ken: Out with the guys, leave one.

Mom: Ken, you’re being rude. We raised you better than that. Love Mom

That conversation would normally be followed up by a phone call from my Mom, asking me why I was being rude over IM. When I tried to explain to her that I wasn’t at my computer, she’d try to convince me to call the police, because she was under the impression that some brazen criminal had broken into my dorm room with the discreet purpose of being rude to the people on my Buddy List.

Away messages were tough for my Mom to grasp at first, and personally for me they're my least favorite feature of IM.

Some away messages are fine to put up. I have no problem with my friends who put up away messages telling their friends they were, “At the gym …”, or informing people that they were, “At class until 3:00 …”, I also have no problem with the simple away messages such as, “Call the cell …”, or even the horribly generic, “Leave a message …”.

In my mind, those are fine.

The away messages I hated seeing were the ones that tried to be cute, witty, or overy philosophical in tone.

In my humble opinion, an away message should be simple and informative. If you’re intent on putting an away message up on your computer, use it to tell the people why you’re “away from your computer”. Tell people that you’re, “In the other room …”, or “Eating lunch …”, don’t use your away message to give the world a quote from a Coldplay song.

When I’m curious about whether you want to go to the bar tonight, reading the lyrics to Fix You doesn’t give me the answer I need. All that message does is infuriate me, and I have a pet peeve about away messages infuriating me.

I also absolutely hated the away messages that attempted to give me advice on how to live my everyday life. I don’t want to IM you only to get an automatic response back that says, “Enjoy every moment of your life …”.

When someone posts an away message like that, what do they think is going to happen? Do they think that whomever reads that away message is suddenly going to have their view of the world changed for years to come? Is some miserable, suicidal, person on your buddy list going to read that quote and suddenly change their outlook on life for the better?

Do the people who post those messages think years from now some person is going to be drinking martinis with their friends, talking about turning points in their life, only to say, “Well, my sophomore year of college I IM’d Judy to see if she wanted to grab lunch, her away message told me to not take anything in life for granted, and I haven’t been the same since?”.

I hate to break this to you, but nobody’s life can be changed by an away message, unless that away message informs the recipient that their entire family had been killed in a horrific head on collision. Unfortunately IM doesn’t have that type of real time technology available yet.

The away messages that irk me the most, however, are the ones that inform the world that you’re sleeping.

What important events happen in your life between the hours of 2am and 9am that make you feel that you have an open channel to communicate with the rest of the world via Instant Messenger?

That link that Mike is going to send you while he's drunk at 4am, the link to the funny photo of the dog cuddling with the goat, can wait until 1pm the next day. That’s not the kind of thing you need to automatically find on your computer when you wake up the next morning.

Don't get me wrong, I’m not saying that photos of dogs cuddling with goats aren’t adorable, I’m just saying that they don’t necessarily need to be viewed first thing in the morning.

I used to hate “Sleeping …” away messages so much that I used to make it a point to send that person as many frightening messages as I could so that they thought their life had forever changed while they were sleeping. The stream of messages would be something like this :

Ken: OH MY GOD, THERE’S SO MUCH BLOOD !!!